Saturday, September 29, 2007

From the dialogues and narratives, three themes emerged LIFE, SCHOOL and CLASSROOM.

a) We experienced LIFE as a place where STUDENTS ARE MORE THAN LEARNERS.
b) We experienced the SCHOOL as a place where SCHOOL STAFF ARE MORE THAN CAREERS and where students go to build more than a career
c) We experienced the CLASSROOM as a place where TEACHERS ARE MORE THAN TEACHERS and LEARNERS ARE MORE THAN LEARNERS

  • In LIFE, we emerged proud of our achievements as friends, as family members and as survivors. This means that words like present, honesty, care, trust, respect, fun, current job, family orient our reasoning more than words like future, graduation, class attendance, career;
  • In SCHOOL, the dialogues portrayed culture shocks between our reasoning and the school's; there are plenty of opportunities to improve flexibility, versatility, communication, young adult and adult learning suitability and community integration;
  • In CLASSROOM, the dialogues opened a revealing window to the daily struggles of people with learning or social challenges and to the impact of a teacher who accept the challenge of an enriched teaching job, where instead of only focusing on the transforming the student minds, he is in life together with the students, focused on the whole person (mind, body and spirit), engaging in conversation, transforming students and being transformed by them. The dialogues showed different kinds of culture shocks and revealed the impact of the dominance of the left brain style on people’s lives. In CLASSROOM, the dialogues showed practical examples of actions that allow all students and their teacher to better integrate; the ability of showing the will to address the student's needs was crucial to the success of our time together: the teacher was a learner.

TO GO BACK: Click on Introduction or Dialogues (Life, School, Classroom)

Tuesday, September 4, 2007